Outloud will return on a regular basis starting in March, on the fourth Wednesday of each month, at UpFront Exhibition Space, 31 Jersey Ave., Port Jervis.

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The Outloud open mic event coming up tonight at Yo Cups in Westfall, Pa., is a result of host Alyta Adams' ambivalence about being loud.

"It's always been hard for me to put my creative self in public," she said. "That's true for most people. So I wanted to give people the opportunity to come out of the closet with their talents."

Adams started hosting Outloud open mic events for poets, writers, musicians, dancers, stand-up comics and actors in May at UpFront Exhibition Space in Port Jervis. She stopped in October as the venue closed for the winter.

"I love doing the shows, seeing others blossom," said Adams. "It's my hope that these parties provide a venue for people who have been hiding their light under a bushel to have a supportive space to grow into their bigger, better selves."

Adams has been acting, singing a cappella, and presenting her poetry most of her life, she says. And in the last year she began doing stand-up comedy in New York.

She said she found the name "Outloud" in a quote from Emile

Zola: "If you ask me what I came here to do, I will tell you; I came to live out loud."

Some people were performing for the first time, presenting work from a realm in which they had just begun experimenting. The experience fueled further efforts, and they came back with more, said Adams.

Each act was initially given 10 minutes, but that ultimately felt too long, Adams said. So the performers voted to reduce their time to seven minutes, which now prevails. And those seven minutes belong to the performers — Outloud etiquette requires respect for them.

"It's not like a club where you talk while people perform," Adams said. "During a performance, we're quiet."